ABOUT £822,000 of taxpayers' cash will be spent on an EU "diversity project" to harmonise the wearing of Muslim headscarfs across Europe.
The research will be used by policymakers with the aim of making headscarf policy fairer.
Any findings of the three-year study will then shape anti-discrimination policies and the integration of minorities, particularly minority women.
The project Veil (Values, Equality and Differences in Liberal Democracies) will also look at why it is so contentious and why people feel so strongly about it.
The wearing of the headscarf by Muslim women living in Europe has raised controversy, dividing opinion among policymakers, courts, churches and the women's movement.
Earlier this year, schoolgirl Shabina Begum, 15, from Luton, lost her battle to wear a full-length jilbab gown in a High Court ruling.
She had been out of Denbigh High School, Luton, since September 2002 in dispute over school rules which she claim denied her religious and educational rights.
There are huge differences in public attitudes and regulations in European countries.
